The Golden Calf | Ryan Mendoza 2022
curated by Patrizia Monterosso, Paola Nicita

An art of restless inquiry confronts the resigned, the indifferent, the preachers of virtue, and the faithful consumers of all-encompassing truths. From the Palazzo Reale comes Ryan Mendoza’s silent yet powerful cry.

“Look at this mess,” reads one of the works: confront the disorder, the “mess” of the world around us. In an exercise akin to cognitive defusion, the artist invites us to broaden our gaze and approach reality as a space of possibility, resisting the dominant tendency of our time towards constriction and closure. We can no longer afford to turn away from the ambiguities of contemporary society: there is no time left. Tick-tock, tick-tock—a deafening countdown is pressing upon us all.
This disorder and ambiguity haunt Mendoza, an American artist and citizen of the world who has gained international recognition and authority through his engagement with human rights and critical discourse. His visual practice is inseparable from a persistent impulse to expose and denounce, a defining feature of his artistic research. Mendoza reveals the paradoxes of our time and develops a critical and artistic reflection on the social landscapes in which we find ourselves.
The exhibition is the authentic outcome of a conceptual journey conceived specifically for the Fondazione Federico II and the Palazzo Reale, once the residence of the sovereign. The building itself embodies the continuity and enduring vitality of art from the past to the present, demonstrating how the Palazzo Reale has always provided a space for the diverse emotions, perspectives, and forms of expression of both individuals and artists.
Almost all of the works were created by Mendoza specifically for this exhibition. The artist worked extensively on paintings, ceramic sculptures, and mixed-media works, conceived as words within a broader lexical puzzle.
In an age in which we tend to identify obsessively with our thoughts, allowing them to become indistinguishable from our very identity and blurring the boundaries between real and unreal, right and wrong, the artist pushes this condition towards the point of absurdity in an attempt to open a radically new channel of communication—one that remains untainted and unconditioned. It is on this frequency, suspended between experience and perception, that he chooses to establish his dialogue.
The exhibition project itself underwent a profound transformation before becoming a finished exhibition, changing shape as it evolved through crises and moments of rupture, alternating with creative impulses and periods of collective exchange. Little remains of the original conception, and it is precisely this transformation that constitutes one of the project’s defining strengths.
The Fondazione Federico II has conceived the exhibition as a dispersed, site-responsive project extending across the interior and exterior spaces of the Palazzo and beyond the boundaries of Sicily. It encompasses a range of artistic languages—from video and sculpture to painting, which ultimately dominates the exhibition. The result is a journey through spaces and works in search of identity, in which Mendoza’s visionary, restless, and uncompromising gaze confronts the question of truth without retreating or seeking to accommodate the viewer.
From the rooms to the garden and courtyard of the Palazzo Reale, Mendoza’s works construct a direct and radical narrative, interrogating the present through the enduring force of painting.